November 9, 2021 Governing Board Meeting.: Governing Board Meeting

001oh good meeting everyone thank you for coming to order united please of america and to the republic for which it stands thank you she said she's coming down which i don't know she's down now mr actually yeah mr ollery yeah mr mcgiving yes here thank you okay we have approval of the agenda if i would remind everyone on the agenda that now is the time if you want something cold and the only time to pull something out of consent so with that i'll understand a motion on the independent motion second discussion i would like to pull um the vitamin b the approval vouchers from uh replace uh vouchers as d is that correct yeah thank you guys we're at the approval of the agenda and we have a removal of vouchers to item 12p at

002new business any further changes to the agenda october 14. a move we approve of october 14 discussion mrs allen yes mrs keith yeah mr australia yes okay folks bear with me we have quite a few here i've got a few to read and then if you don't mind uh please remember when you come on up we've got two minutes okay [Music] this is from uh mr and mrs right we are the grandparents of a seventh grader attending continental deeply troubled by the number of increased transmissions the parents of our grandchild share the daily notifications of the graduate students and our staff our families follow all cdc guidelines and our grandchild wears a mask to school the most recent data indicate that schools without a mass mandate experience a much higher outbreak than those who have

003who have science proves that mitigation strategies work please have this letter read at tuesday's meeting with a request that the board implement a policy that will guarantee the health and well-being of students and families and faculty vaccinations mass and social distancing are vital to getting the pandemic under control and keeping our communities safe we received a letter from the school last week to remind us of our yearly tax credit donation the students will not be able to take advantage of our contribution and enjoy the benefits unless they are healthy thank you folks appreciate your comments okay this is from christine john dear connell school board members and administrators as a concerned parent local healthcare professional i urge you to do better by our children in implementing a science-based covent mitigation plan clearly or mass our

004optional policy is not working i often get multiple messages on a daily basis about affected staff members and students my seventh grade son has had several of his teachers affected her quarantine and now informed me that his classroom of 24 was down to 10 last week due to copenhagen it is impossible to provide an effective educational environment with this sort of instability your oath as school administrators and governing board members is clear you are to provide both academic excellence and a safe environment to our students sadly you are failing miserably in both areas since your mass our optional approach is not working how about trying a new strategy and following science the centers for disease control american academy pediatrics and the pima county health department will all have clear all have clear school-based mitigation strategies

005in place for stopping the spread of this highly contagious and deadly disease what this means for you is to proactively implement mass mandates and facilitate vaccine vaccination efforts in addition to having most robust health and safety measures and disease management plans in place we are all extremely tired of wearing mass social distancing and the daily destruction of our lives that this i'm sorry disruption or realize that this disease has caused over the past 18 months but until we change our behaviors this virus will continue to be part of our lives the machinery of the virus will continue to infect and mutate until mitigation efforts are reached in high levels or until your herd immunity is reached through vaccination efforts as we move into cold flu season and the delta and new variants spread if we're

006seeing even more chaotic and unsafe learning environment for our students and staff so if you are truly dedicated to the health and safety of our students and providing academic excellence then please get on board with science and help eradicate this virus i challenge you continental governing board members and administrators to lead by example and implement these common-sense science-based measures to protect our learning community from coming up thank you for your comments appreciate them okay this is uh catherine jungle board members the news in our local newspaper regarding the cases of copen among teachers staff and students is most alarming i find it very upsetting that there is not a requirement for all to wear masks during the flu pandemic over 100 years ago without the medications available to us now mass boring contributed to the

007elimination of that tragic health crisis at the time my grandson eli attends continental and ever since he has attended i volunteered there i loved being involved in helping the children however with this pandemic and lack of mass vaccine resistance as well as the younger ones not not yet able to be vaccinated there's too great a chance for me to take with my own health so i have not been able to enjoy helping the teachers of students i still wear a mask when i shop go to church and i have been vaccinated and ready for the booster listen to science the vaccines are the answer to ending the spending until one gets their vaccines mass keeping their distance and frequent good hand washing i'm sorry until one gets their vaccines masked keeping their distance and frequent

008good hand washing are the only answer to help to keep us all safe as possible there's a sad state of affairs there are so many who are missing school economy staff as well as students surely this will not be a successful school year if this continues thank you for your comments i appreciate it okay emily jarvis come on good evening president mr mcgibbon members of the board and community members my name is emily jarvis i am a parent of two students here at continental i'm here today to speak on behalf of my children and the students in the community and i'm here to tell you why we should end the mandatory 10-day quaranting of healthy students to contact tracing we all agree we want policies that are healthy and good for our children that must

009include looking at their total health and weighing the two years of data we now have our children spreading covet the science is no according to the largest study carried out on 1500 school children in germany zero transmissions occurred in schools they concluded quote children act as a natural break on infection and the south korean study of 65 000 people found transmission from children to adults at zero to two point seven percent said differently they found children played no significant role in transmission our children dying according to the cdc in 18 months of 73 million u.s children covet has been present in 343 pediatric deaths though it's been the only cause mentioned in 6 children have a 99.997 survival rate children are not spreading or dying in anywhere near pandemic level numbers this is not to

010minimize any doubt but to scrutinize policy in light of real data so what are the risks of coven to our children after two years of data we know that the most serious risk to our kids due to coping is suicide and mental health we've had far more coveted suicides than living deaths in children 2020 youth suicide increased 22 percent to close to over 2 800 children if 343 children died with covet to date in 2020 alone 538 more children committed suicide than in 2019 and in 2020 the cdc reported a 51 increase in suicide attempts among teenage girls the academic social athletic physical and emotional development and freedom they are denying healthy children on an ongoing basis as criminal and we have a moral comparative to set up a town if we are following the

011science healthy children should not be preemptively banned from school for 10 days due to contact tracing and this can happen to a child multiple times they are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and we are perpetuating a mental health pandemic our cure is worse than this disease for our children we do not wish to cater to a coconut forever or to covet only policies the science shows banning healthy kids from school is anti-science and does far more harm than good we say no to social diseasing no to mandatory masks ever again and please permanently rescind the mandatory 10-day quarantine and social distancing for healthy students temperature checks are reasonable attend a ban from school and social shining is not and lastly the anti-science mask ambulance must have no part in this situation thank

012you for your time and i have left behind supporting evidence for all of you thank you tom brazny you're up thank you president mcgivern members of the board of community members i'm tom brosny i live at 1062 east lumberjack trail i am the proud grandparent of two continental cults my day job i am the green valley sarita representative for supervisor steve christie who's our county supervisor in this area so i want to talk about a conversation i had with a parent uh and what we call a constituent cert concern a couple weeks ago a parent called me regarding quarantine protocols that pima county health department makes in the decision in having students and classes quarantined i discussed with supervisor christine a week ago he addressed this to the pima county health department folks represented by

013dr garcia deputy county administrator who oversees the health department during this november 2nd board of supervisors meeting here are the two main major takeaways from that conversation first pima county health department does not have the authority to mandate that children need to get vaccinated to attend school that kind of mandate would need to come from the governing board and i'm pretty confident that this governing board would not do that second the health department does have under state statute the ability to request warranty this has to do with the authority under state statute governing disease breakouts as an example in the past the health department did close down parts of the bale school district because of a pertussis outbreak the health department analyzes data presented to them by continental school and makes a quarantined request to

014the school administration if the school or parents do not comply the only remedy for the health department is to file a lawsuit they cannot in themselves enforce a quarantine they will not call the sheriff's department to lock down the school i hope this clarifies some of the concerns that parents have when the health department becomes involved i'll watch the school administration the governing board and applaud the efforts they've made to keep continent el continental open for in-school learning thank you oh my name is paul lagree i'm a father of a student here at continental um i'd like to start by expressing my gratitude to the board and to mr latham and the covet task force greatly appreciate the hard work you've done to make sure that our children have attended school throughout the pandemic but

015i'm most grateful that you've chosen not to allow our children to be used as political powers we've chosen to listen to actual science and real data that have from the beginning dictated that our children attending school in person is the most responsible decision when it comes to the issue of quarantine though i think we can do better for our children i can understand the logic of winning the quarantine from the disease that carries a high mortality rate however since the beginning of the pandemic it has been proven over and over again that children simply do not carry the same risk of death of 19. currently the mortality rate for children under 18 is less than 0.01 which is less than the figure the cdc goes on their website for the mortality rate of the seasonal

016flu in the same age bracket before this pandemic if any of you suggested that kids need to quarantine for 10 days if they were near someone with the flu should have been laughed out of this room the fact of the matter is here to stay we need to stop making decisions based on the nonsensical proposition that we can end covet completely it's time to stop asking those of us who simply follow the data and believe in actual science to acquiesce to those who make decisions based on the opinions of cable news pundits and their political agendas we cannot continue to quarantine every student for 10 days just because they came in contact with someone who's tested positive um we need to have an alternative that allows our kids to stay in school back in may

017this board listed among its chief priorities maintaining local control i believe that it's time for you to exercise that priority the purpose of my comments here tonight are to ask this board to make a local provision allowing kids who have been determined to have close contact been given the option to take a coveted test and allowed to stay in school if that test is negative thank you thank you sir members of the board and community members my name is gene hughes i live at 2398 east glen canyon i'm here to speak about agenda item number 12a under new business if the arizona school boards association proposed by launch changes and vote authorization and first of all i want to thank you the board for again providing documentation with every meeting agenda i applaud your efforts

018and your transparency i read every bit of the information before coming to any meeting that i come to and i strongly encourage everyone else to do so to help us all be a little bit more educated about what's going on in schools the recommended action on the arizona school boards association proposal by law change is stated as follows in the agenda this is not on the printed agenda you have to go into the online agenda to get all this information but it's all there so the recommended action is and i quote motion to consider and give direction to the district secretary on voting on one by-law change proposal and one core belief addition to the arizona school boards association your rationale and the attached documentation explain the bylaw change very well however i was unable

019to determine what is proposed as the core belief edition so i researched the arizona school boards association website as well as the national school boards association website but was unable to find any information on what is this core belief edition being proposed maybe you have it somewhere but i usually look over everything well always look over everything you've got very carefully couldn't find it but i did find troubling information on both those websites for the arizona school boards association and the national school boards association including a letter from the national school boards association to president bike [Music] and based on what i saw on these websites my curiosity about this core belief edition has really turned into fear and concern so i would ask you today that when you get to discuss the core belief

020edition that you please explain it to us and i urge your careful consideration discussion and making a decision that is in the best interest of all students in arizona not some politically motivated agenda thank you anderson good evening or community members my name is angie anderson i live at 428 west paseo solana in the heart of green valley at la canada and esperanza i'm here tonight to oppose the asba bylaws change being voted on and urge a no vote although the asba board of directors recommends a yes vote i believe that rather than singling out certain people for special treatment the change to the bylaws does nothing to renew our commitment to all people to a more perfect union dividing people into tribes causes weakness uniting people causes strength and a better understanding of the

021human condition when we are united there is nothing we cannot achieve we know that discrimination is among the most despicable injustices imaginable what concerns most parents is what's best for their kids they want an education climate free from bigotry and intolerance as adults we lead by example i'm sure this school and governing board want to achieve the same goals as parents and grandparents thank you all for doing the hard work necessary to ensure we have a healthy and mature population capable of success finally uh mr papariz come on down [Music] my son is a former student here and i've had the privilege of working with all these lovely board members over the years but i have something really happy to see a little happiness hi kids um if for all those that read our local

022school paper or not school paper but green valley news you probably noticed over the last month there's this thing called the reader's pick award and they have all these different businesses and whatnot they have one special category called the best teacher on the planet i got to nominate that teacher and then go out and trash the seed streets and try to get votes for that teacher and that teacher lost no machine yeah anyhow know more about that the teacher in question is our very own empty banning so very speech but it only took 30 years come on i'm very honored um i i really wish we had won the best place to work because really this is the best school um to work at i've been here for a long time and i hope it

023continues so um the is nominate a staff member to receive the men's bell award every month and mrs fanning always has a lot of little post-it notes about how wonderful and amazing she is and students in high school attest to the great work that miss fighting has done in preparing them for math and future in college so we do have the very best so thank you so much okay next we have our superintendent report as a reminder this is a report so there are no uh no questions on them okay good evening president members of the board and community students staff and parents thank you for being here today just want to keep in the forefront our mission statement and boys and girls you see this everywhere it's there on the wall teachers see it

024in our nether heads it's in our website continental school district will provide a community environment in which all individuals are challenged to achieve excellence in academics character and life skills our vision statement building for the future learning cooperating and caring for all theme of the year is focused on the big rocks as you all know we are very excited to let everybody know that we did our first teaching and learning learning walks which i really feel this is the work that's going to move us forward and increase student achievement in a learning walk staff members we go into classrooms and there's a leadership team so you'll see in the picture on the right hand side everyone that was there about five or six adults go into a classroom observe the teacher and the students for

02515 to 20 minutes we leave and we come back and we discuss um best practices and obviously there's a rubric of sheet of water form that we go through we go back into the classroom and we give feedback not only to the teacher but to specific students for their behaviors and their vocabulary and their actions in terms of meeting standards so what we are going to do in december is split up and divide and conquer and this time we observe three teachers so the next three rotations will observe six teachers so every teacher will have a chance to be visited and be on the observing side to see best practices throughout our school so we can develop a common knowledge and on teaching and learning and expectations for our students and our staff um conferences

026meetings and trainings i attended the yamapak strategic planning board meeting in phoenix and amma pack is working on college completion for all students so it really is talking about what can elementary schools middle schools and high schools do better to prepare students for college success and at continental the avid work that we've implemented this year is truly for that purpose to really build college college readiness for students we also talked about college academies for parents i'm getting parents to understand better understand college and university life to help their students the asa conference we were at we i went to a session on the international center for leadership and education which is model schools and discussion of rigor the highlight was talking about data teams and the collection of data in all classrooms to determine instruction

027and goals which again ties into the learning walks that we are doing october november i've been presenting love and logic to parents um here at our school we have 10 to 12 parents who are coming i also volunteered to do some parenting classes in rio rico at umandi middle school again talking about our crawling quality world picture our laugh needs which are the love and belonging achievement fun and freedom and we talk about the three types of parents the helicopters the drill sergeants and the consultants so um i will offer another parenting session in the spring it will work this one is during the day and i'll offer one in the evening so we can hopefully also learn common knowledge because teachers use how to turn their words into gold for school and we also

028teach how to turn words into gold for uh home asa executive board meeting in dear valley was yesterday and the word of the day was paused because we're pausing on essence requirements things are changing at the state level and superintendents and school teams are trying to stay ahead of the game but they keep changing things so it was just pause and across arizona all districts are struggling with the lack of substitute teachers and bus drivers so we feel very fortunate that we are fully stacked right now with our drivers our substitutes we do have substitutes a lot of districts are using esser funds to help um to post positions for teachers to help close the achievement gap increase learning and there they don't have applicants so we have the funding but we don't have applicants

029for teachers and subs and drivers in arizona so it's a state struggle enrollment update we're steady so we put this in every board meeting so you can see where we are in terms of enrollment so we are at 656 students today and at the end of 1920 school year we were at 696 so we're still down about 33 students what i wanted to share this attendance update based on 656 enrolled students pre-k a so when we later on in the agenda we'll be discussing covid cases and number of students who have had to quarantine and isolate and what that looks like but what i'd like and everyone to see here is week one the first week of school so you can see we had 92 attendance of our students our goal is 90 or better

030every week and we just broke this down for fridays because usually fridays is when parents want to take off and have three day weekends or so we are looking at fridays but you'll see the number of students that we had we had 47 students out that first week of school and three were in isolation and five were a quarantine so there were 39 extra kids absent week one that were non-covered related okay week two and i'm not going to go through the whole chart but you can see week two we had 93 students absent and 28 of the students were out due to covid or quarantine so we had 65 additional students out so you can see on the weeks we have 65 71 54 65 41 students who are out on a regular basis

031i highlighted in red because those are the weeks that we are not at 90 attendance or better so we really have to work at getting our kids to school in order to close the achievement gap um if they're not here during the day they're not here for after school tutorials we are having our first saturday school on this saturday that and we've identified some students but we really do need our parents to understand that we really do need kids in school via their rotary birthday books again cults appreciate rotary's continuous support for our school and students so we used to do monthly birthday books and we combined the kids by semesters and it really is nice because kids get to interact with other kids not just two or three at a time as they're talking

032about books and picking their books so again thank you to vaiverde rotary for birthday books for students our foundation mark your calendar sweetheart ayla saturday february 12th we are looking for sponsors and silent auction items so any of you know any business partners or have brands who are willing to help sponsor the gita or provide items for sign an auction we greatly appreciate it we will also have our jazz band performing and may have some of our students our art club's art worked up so it really is a good time also um our continental foundation submitted and received a grant from the greater green valley foundation to finish our outdoor musical playground so our foundation really does amazing work for our students as well as providing many grants for teachers for additional items that they

033may need in their classrooms student advisory meetings and let's talk here's our student advisory kids um we had talked about at our first meeting in october the fact that they wanted um in september they really wanted to build up our kindness efforts at our school so we had a plan to make kind be kind posters that you'll see hanging around our school and we do have middle school students middle school advisory and other students attending the let's talk youth development day this friday in sao anita that will have us give our students a chance to discuss school life how they're feeling any issues or concerns they have really talking about how things are going academically and socially emotionally avid parent dinner we introduced um avid to our parents and we did have i believe 10

034parents out of a lot of kids i don't know how many total avid kids we have but we know we have at least 40 in the middle school and each grade level has an avid teacher but we introduced wicker which is writing inquiry comprehension organization and rigor parents shared the number of we asked who how many were college graduates we talked about how many were first generation college graduates spoke to students about how many had been to the u of a do they know about nau they've heard about it the kids have never been there asu so we really are going to promote college and career going culture and take our avid middle school students to do site college visits locally and um at asu and nau so stay tuned and our aauw women are

035here and we want to thank them again for the chromebooks that they provided for our students we did a little video that will tell the story so [Music] thousand dollars [Music] and that conversation started with our students named chrome and that 500 donation that amuw made because of the amazing efforts of the aauw women's game we are so excited that the 500 donation grew to 27 000 it was a true testament and the collaborative efforts of our community and of the organizations that support continental and we're looking forward to the aaw women supporting us through tutoring for reading and math with the students on their cookbooks so we are very grateful thank you i'll start with just a simple conversation it was a conversation what can aauw do to help out the schools and that

036conversation started with our students need chromebooks and that 500 donation that aauwm was able to give us with the community involvement group over 27 000 so we're able to provide chromebooks for our kindergarten and first grade students so thank you [Music] stand over here for a minute [Applause] but once they get on they know how to use the program and we will continue hopefully by end holiday season beginning of new year they will be able to log on themselves uh [Music] okay can i have our wonderful age of young women please stand up can be the spokesperson family art night very well attended we had 192 students and parents at 10 a special thank you to our foundation as well for providing 50 to each teacher for their art projects so there's some of the

037projects that were displayed we had our middle school kids with mr boyce make the sugar skulls and it was very interactive we interacted we had a lot of students doing great art projects trunk or treat and halloween carnival we have an amazing ptc and outstanding community support thank you trick or treat we had preschool kids kinder and first graders come to our hallways to trick-or-treat there's some of our preschool students a few pictures of our colts in action our coaching staff and students rock there's our cheerleaders and our basketball players again as a reminder this is information only not an opportunity for questions but if anybody would like to see anything presented please let me let me know or let this monika know so we can get in on a future agenda and again thank

038you if the big rocks don't go in first they aren't going to fit in later and message that i read today and one of the articles that i read was stop getting distracted by things that have nothing to do with your goals are you filled up so we'll stay the keep the state of course then keep focused on teaching and learning so thank you very much good evening governing board and continental committee we appreciate you coming out real quick i'm going to break script i am the last thing standing between these kids and their moment and i have two presentations so kiddos go ahead and stand up real quick stand up reach down and touch your toes we just won't touch the sky all right sorry but it's been a long time for these kiddos

039already so um with that i'm gonna make my presentations as quick as possible [Music] so the first thing i'm going to talk about is our first quarter sports um flag football we had 42 total athletes girls volleyball we had 45 total athletes cross country we had 33 total athletes with a total of 120 total athletes participating in first quarter sports keep in mind we do not have a big middle school that is super impressive numbers so we're very very excited with that um as we were able to share very freshly after we run these at the last board meeting our girls volleyball team ended up traveling to take a birthday and winning second place so great year coming off of children for them and then our girls cross country team ended up taking first place

040down at rio rico so that's the fun part of my job now the quarter disciplinary report for first quarter the continental staff is using surgery to report infractions odrs is an office discipline referral and minor referrals are represented in this report we had a total of 30 infractions for just quarter watch for kindergarten three grade 18 minors both majors the results of some of those were one student one day in school suspension six students out of school suspension minute is 21 days okay we're working really hard and keeping all of our kids in because of having to quarantine them so we we are working hard to keep all of our students on campus as much as possible the one thing i'd like to add to that as well we're really excited this year we've been

041able to bring back the cold box store that our ptc moms have been helping with that's a motivation for the students to get cold for their positive behavior for being kind safe and responsible and at the end of the month they get to cash that in for a prize okay works a lot like you see at the different pizza places in town as far as those prices and it really motivates the kids to do good things my next presentation is future growth plans so this is something that we're really we were actually asked at the last board meeting by mrs keith to share about what our plans are moving forward what thoughts do we have as our community continues to grow around us and we get more and more students that don't know so our

042strategic planning future growth according to the sfb the school facilities board based on square footage continental will be at a capacity of 1148 students okay that number is not what we're predicting we're going to be in a year or two that's what the facility board requires before they will give us funding to build a new school okay it's that number our current enrollment enrollment is in including preschool on tuesday august 17th the administration team met with mayor murphy to discuss discuss growth and demographic study 20 years out so they talked about what our community will look like in that we really ask the the question sarita seems to be growing very rapidly what is that going to look like for us and essentially they're going to start even in the next couple of years developing

043some of those concord shirts that are more to the north around the town of syria but we're looking at the bakan orchards down here 15 to 20 years out before we actually see development of homes in the majority to the full capacity is what we're being told by many of her we're continuing to explore land owned by continental to consider future site which we do own approximately 20 acres in madera highlands madera highlands project growth is approximately 660 homes with an increase of about 30 percent of kindergarten for 8th grade and 21 increase of grades 9 through 12 within the next three to five years approximately 211 additional students kindergarten adding one teacher per grade level so right now our current campus um kindergarten through fifth grade we actually have four classrooms with our build

044out that we did about six seven years ago and we're using three of those currently so we have one extra room in each pod however the special education department we are using each of those rooms to house our special education as you'll see a little bit further that is a concern that we'll talk about approximate student enrollment total 867 281 students below sfb capacity okay so that's kind of where projected growth is at for now issues of concern lack of available classrooms lack of elementary gym currently taking up space in the middle school so our elementary students are currently meeting in two classrooms we have the dividers where the elementary pe is housed in those two rooms expanding special education services and programs needed parking on current campus as many of you know if you

045were here for the truck retreat we were parked i think a mile down the road and so we're we're having some ideas we're working on that as well and then of course transportation as we go we have to think about our transportation we're looking at freeing up existing classrooms by creating space for specialists okay we're also in the middle school two classrooms being used by the elementary pe one classroom being used by ell an academic and behavior support teacher in elementary one class in each plot is currently being used for special education to solve that problem we've talked about things that we may need to do in the next anywhere from like three to six years is build a resource building as original plan call for when you can't build or build a new preschool

046and move special education into the current move the preschool to another site for location that we already own property owners also another idea is to convert the bus barn into an elementary gym and we'll talk more about that as well so resource building um four to six small classrooms office is needed so what i was talking about before where um this part next to the fifth grade product was actually not built out during our our original build which was designed to house the special education department which is now in those class that extra classroom in each room next slide the bus barn currently is 60 feet by 80 feet um 12 feet by 12 feet office is also in there and a 12 by 12 storage so we would look at making that taking half

047the bus barn and making half of it for our elementary gym and then the other half would still be used for fixing buses our maintenance department and things like that keep in mind this is just a not a guarantee that we're doing these things this is a suggestion to overcome the growth that we're experiencing here's an example alter valley which is out of three points arizona converted their bus bar into a jam it was built in 1994 the floor was approximately 100 dollars and the entire cost was about three hundred twenty thousand dollars for the building process ours we're we've already asked a contractor he's coming in two weeks to give us a quote as always we'll go out for three different bids on that but we're just interested to see what ours would be

048we're only looking at doing as you can see that's actually as i want to say we have three full-size basketball courts in that bus barn we're looking at it would be about one and a half um so quite a bit smaller they added four swank coolers the price is important um they were put in several years ago for about twenty thousand dollars the prices of this may go up because the cost of construction materials and things have gone up so we're looking forward to having that first contractor bid so we have an idea of what that would cost needed parking on current campus this is obviously a big concern we've looked at a couple different things here so south of white house canyon road we actually own three acres so our lot is in a

049big square and it actually comes across most people don't realize this but right across the street we own three acres in the shape of a triangle okay so we talked about what would it take if we did that um and made it even temporary parked in this moment but then our concern was we still have people trying to cross white house camping so we're looking at this right here which is about one acre of playing and clearing that out and for the time being even if it was just a dirt block when we have a big christmas concerts when we have um the trunk or treat or those activities that makes it safer for our community because we're not part you know like i said a good mile down the road um so that's something

050we're actually looking at very quickly and we're already working with the county and getting the proper permitting just to clear that land and then future development later on could be possibly paving it with asphalt things of that nature but right now just having the dirt bot for available parking would be much safer than our current system okay how do you kids and she can come and meet with me as well if she'd like to make an appointment that can go over with that now for the best part of the meeting for sure i'd like to introduce our goal for the month come on up okay all of our students with the white slip come on up here we're going to do preschool at the front and our middle schoolers eighth grade in the back so

051three screens right here kindergarten right here yes thank you [Music] if there are any quotes of the month that showed up a little later your slip is back there you can go see miss monica and get in the line and then colts of the months do i have your attention up here if i could have your attention after we read the beautiful messages from your teachers you're gonna go back there to miss molina see she's waving your hat she's gonna give you a shirt and a coupon for a free ice cream from our wonderful posada java and then you're gonna come back and and stand over here by the wall because at the end we're gonna take a picture okay so don't go back to the seats just yet all right all right so armando

052is kind and safe he's very responsible and he's very good at problem solving and always tries his best um all right so miss tesso's kindergarten teacher says jack tries every day to be his best he is a good friend to his classmates and helps everyone he follows the school rules and is a good role model congratulations [Music] is [Music] harper anderson mrs olderson writes harper is a wonderful student she is kind because she's always concerned about how her classmates are doing and she's always eager to help in any way harper is safe she knows and understands classroom cafeteria and playground rules and follows them well harper is responsible i can trust her to run an errand to another classroom or to the front office i can trust her to walk a classmate to the front

053office or to the school nurse and she helps me in many ways and she's such a wonderful part of our class so proud is very kind safe and responsible student he's always willing to help his classmates he looks out for them and makes sure they have what they need whether it's helping them with work or carrying their books he offers to assist in any way possible whenever something is needs to be done he's willing to step in and help no matter what congratulations [Music] so leighton miss jones writes lane is always demonstrating kindness safety and responsibility he's helpful to friends and always tries his best leighton is funny hard-working and a joy to have in class congratulations my name is so mrs rodriguez right emma is kind to everyone around her and she smiles every

054day she remembers to use classroom supplies and school equipment safely she's responsible because she brings her classroom supplies and homework daily congratulations maggie is very kind safe and responsible cold maggie encourages her classmates and truly cares about them she practices safety and physical education by listening and following directions maggie shows responsibility by recalling and practicing our physical education procedures without having to be reminded of them i am so proud of magni and know she will inspire many more quotes to come and she was nominated by miss kohler her pe teacher congratulations is always kind and makes sure everyone around her is safe she's very responsible and always ready to learn and help others congratulations my name is alexandra patterson and my teacher is miss [Music] all morsky miss marsky writes alexandria started second grade ready

055to learn she's a phenomenal student and friend she always gives her best alexandria is kind caring always willing to help anyone around she sticks up for others i love her eagerness to try her things she gives it her all alexandria has a great imagination and is a great problem solver her creativity constantly amazes me we're lucky to have her in our class alexandria you are so smart kind responsible and reminding you daily week you do hard things congratulations alexandria you are a brilliant kid so addison miss navado writes addison has been working hard in she's exceptionally polite exhibits a positive attitude in the classroom and likes to cooperate with her peers and her teacher addison takes an active role in the classroom discussions and is always looking to challenge her learning to keep up the

056great work addison love miss navado my name is callisto you are a great example of what a cult should be you come to school prepared and ready to work you're always there when a friend or your teacher needs help your great attitude towards everything helps others around you feel good and ready to tackle anything keep working hard ellie you're doing a great job so logan was nominated by mrs roman alley logan is caring and considerate of his fellow classmates in and out of his grade level he works hard at everything he's given with a smile on his face he shows everyone how to be responsible for your own learning every day he's a great student leader and someone to watch as he grows up moves up into middle school in a couple of years congratulations

057so her teacher is miss mills and she was nominated by cynthia by mrs boledi who's our music teacher olivia is consistently kind to her classmates she shows concern for others when she asks how they're doing and will always be inclusive to other students during group activities she's safe by reminding others to do the right thing and use materials appropriately in addition olivia is responsible by always coming to class prepared and ready to learn i'm proud to have a student like olivia in my music classes she's intelligent she's an intelligent young person and has a bright future ahead of her congratulations so miss mills writes danny has opened up so much this year and i'm so happy that she gets up in front of the class to present the stories we write she's kind to everyone

058and makes everyone feel special she's safe inside and out of the classroom she turns her homework in on time every week thank you so much for always being so sweet i'm so glad i get to have you in my class this year congratulations my name is sebastian and my teacher isn't screwed so miss greer writes sebastian is eager to learn and improve he's very knowledgeable student who is eager to share his knowledge with his classmates sebastian is great at helping his classmates with work or any problems they may have congratulations [Music] so mrs adams writes viviana is a top-notch student she comes to class prepared and ready to learn her perfect spelling tests show that she's responsible in her study she's kind to her classmates i can count on her to make safe choices and

059be a good example for others to do the same congratulations and so she was nominated by middle school teachers juliana has a big smile and is always willing to help others she was elected president of the builders club by her peers where she works tirelessly for the good of all juliana is polite respectful obeys all school rules and never engages in unsafe or inappropriate activities she stays after school to watch over little ones whose parents are sponsoring after school activities juliana has earned the trust and respect of her teachers and peers she's a hard worker volunteers and participates in her school and community and is very conscientious about keeping up with her assignments juliana is always puts forth her very best effort in all things big or small she's a role model with passion and

060enthusiasm for life the middle school teachers have chosen juliana mcgee as our eighth grade cult of the month for october 2021. congratulations so if we can have our colts squeeze in a little and then we're going to take a picture [Music] is yes everybody stay cold stay there so at this point we ask our uh both of the months to stay we also have another special presentation that we do every month it's called the golden horseshoe award which is kind of like employee of the month and we have one for certified and classified and so at this time we're going to do that we ask that they stay up here because these individuals that i name really do it for these students up here and so they worked very very hard for that so we're

061going to start with our classified employee of the month talk a little bit and then this great of us will also talk a little bit but this employee has been kind of stable of us running through a pandemic um when we first shut down one of the things that our school continued to do was provide lunches and breakfast throughout our community it didn't matter if you went to our school or not um if you were one years old until 18 years old and you came to any of our locations these are cafeteria staff fed them um and so this individual has worked hard has gone through lots of changes this year as we messed up her lines as she might say and created new ideas and she embraced those and worked with her staff and

062has just done a tremendous job and i know that on our student surveys oftentimes the kids say oh we need better food better food but our our students eat on a regular basis i eat there almost every single day and absolutely love lunch and that's about the only quiet five minutes i get is eating that much and i really appreciate her hard work and her staff's hard work for the director of our cafeteria mr pj and you had your whole crew plus more and you were directing us like a champ on how we were going to prep breakfast prep lunches get stuff out to everyone and you continue to do that to this day the kids are a priority to you and we love you and thank you very much for all of your hard

063work you always have a smile on your face you always make us laugh our next staff member is one of our certified employees this individual we actually brought in um at the beginning of the pandemic and so she's never seen a normal school year here in cocktail school and she actually was brought in as our behavior and academic support specialist and although she does that and balances that she does everything we ask and more and she's always looking for opportunities to support us and help us um even to the point where last minute for the last two days we asked her to cover her class she was able to put everything she had planned aside and cover classes so that we could stay in school on campus and it's just selfless selfless acts one after

064another and just willing to do whatever i have never ever heard her complain i've actually stolen a phrase um from her and at the beginning of the year when someone would come over the radio and would say hey you know i've got this going on this going on and she just comes on and her sweet voice says i can help and that to me just defines uh the type of lady she is where we don't even have to ask if she goes through the need she feels that so um bertha please i would just like to add just how very grateful and lucky we are to have you on board our students love you so much she's also our avid teacher for our middle schoolers and just the support that you give our students our

065staff her colleagues love her so very much and just you are very selfless and you always it's true on milwaukee saying i can help i'm there where do you need me what do you need me to do thank you thank you for the passion that you have for what you do and the service and your expertise you're teaching all of us lots of stuff so thank you okay sir one two three okay thank you parents you all are amazing great great kiddos and we're so happy to have them here with us thank you for your speech and thank you folks we talk we understand that you have life to live feel free to leave [Music] thank you guys oh [Music] well then the church comes over helps them [Music] thank you folks have a great

066evening thank you for coming okay folks we're gonna continue with the meeting now any discussion on that yes well i'm i don't know if i can do this monday thank you so much for your 30 years i'm not going anywhere 30 years teaching middle school kids so personally i need one more year out of you because my daughter's going to be here and my son had her and his favorite classes matt in high school so thank you so much yes okay report items district financial report discussion on aggregate expenditure limit uh mr schubert are you on yeah there i am hope you're feeling well sir please go forward with the report to us tonight before you you have the district financial report as of november 2nd and also we wanted to have a discussion on

067the state's aggregate expenditure limits on november first the state went ahead and came out with their amounts that each district would be responsible for to get at or below the aggregate expenditure limit um when that report first came out the district would have had to cut 1.2 million dollar budget in order which would have been our portion of that cut since then it has been revised down it's been down to just over 1.1 million dollars again this is something that we will have to do this fiscal year if our legislature doesn't do anything by march first so i guess one of the big questions is i know that the the superintendent's association within pima county is to the legislature i know that the groups that i belong to as far as business officials we are

068proposing a letter to our our elected officials that i guess my question is what is the public and what is our our chairman of the pima county gop and the pima county democratic party what are they doing to help get this done and uh we have the consolidated board report do we entertain a motion to approve that board report some discussions well there's two items on here right let's let's uh i'll entertain a motion on the board report and we can have any discussion or questions this is on the district financial report correct 11am [Music] i just want to say for for those of you that uh have shown up any any grassroot efforts you can do to reach out to your your legislator would be amazing um it's a 1.2 billion dollar cut in

069education statewide as of december 1st um and this this should be the easiest thing to get through our state congress in the world both sides of the aisle should fully support this so it should be a very easy task to get done so any grassroots efforts would be wonderful we do have a form that was given to us um superintendents with facts and talking points that we'll put at the back table for you and then if you have questions you can come see us for the public thank you thank you for the discussion yes and we're gonna have some letters and phone numbers and emails that we can cut paste to descendants in because it's um like we're 1.2 sarita is roughly 12 14 million tusd is it's a lot um i mean it's just

070crazy how much sir that's i mean we can't afford to lose 68 dollars so i'm preaching to the choir i know but so we'll get some more information out as soon as we can so we can and we'll get with the newspaper and all the other facilities that we can to like tell our people no no no but greg who is the one that initiated this was it the governor or the lawsuit so this limit has always been in place it's part of the state of arizona constitution and the constitutional limit right so it's always been there um within the past 10 years or so we've come up across this limit i want to say we're here for other times i know that twice that they have actually voted to go ahead and suspend the

071limit the issue that i see moving forward is i don't see this limit issue going away anytime soon um the figures that they use to calculate everything is based off of last year's student enrollment um when districts put together their budgets they're put together based on a weighted student count so if and not to sound um horrible about this but if i have a child that has a disability that child count is more than one when i'm putting together my budget whereas if i have a kindergartner that kindergartner gives me is a half of a person and when i put it using the same numbers a fed student within the preschool program is also funded at half where when they're putting things together that special needs student is still one person that kindergartner is a

072full person and every student i have within my preschool program is a full person so they're using baselines from the 80s that really need to be updated to warm modern times next year they're projecting a 1.27 billion dollars over the limit okay any further discussion just just one comment you know if i understand this correctly greg it's principally due to the fact that when prop 301 uh went into effect it was passed by the voters and there was a sales tax related revenue issue that expired and i mean in essence the sales tax was renewed but by a vote of the legislature which then made it local revenues and and applied against the aggregate uh expenditure limitation is that correct yes sir that is also correct but it's also taking please remember this is that

073that 301 amount count as about 650 million dollars towards a 1.2 billion so that's about half of it okay so we're still over that limit even if we were to take 301 out of the figure thank you for that clarification yeah to me to a certain degree this is an oversight on the part of our legislature and and and i've got to believe that we can get this uh this limit uh suspended um and and yeah i said echo what i think kelly and again and president mcgivern have said it's really essential that we contact our elected representatives and get this thing done because i'll tell you if this actually does apply to this fiscal year and this does not get changed and we go all the way until march first we're not anybody left

074until the day uh march april the night i mean it gets concerning so uh write your legislation thank you so much in a second on the board report financial report i'll move to it i've got just a question greg on the district financial area but what yes or funds remain unspent so currently we have budgeted capacity within ether2 for a special ed reading program um and right now the majority of us are free gym um you put me on the spot i can't think of everything i said there's some there's some funding in there for um saturday school and i i don't have i don't have grants management i can't tell you exactly what else is in there but all of it right now is about 38 000 within salaries and then 25 of that

075within benefits that we're hoping to use for for district employees who run out of lead time that way they can still maintain a full paycheck if they have to be out for any length of time so in essence we don't have a whole lot of customer 2 or s or three monies to spend that are not committed all right everything is committed okay um the only exception of that would be the uh the money for the salaries and benefits for the employees of ronald lee thank you okay um quick question um you think that the funds are committed uh but those are not obligated so we could de-obligate those funds and use those funds is that correct you that is correct um there are some things that we haven't done yet like this of the

076saturday school and i think you know we're in the process of starting fast saturday school um and again without actually having grand management open and safe before everything is actually allocated to i can't speak intelligently on that correct but we also know that a percentage of sr3 had to be obligated to increasing student achievement to close the achievement gap um and so that's why we included saturday school in to that plan in terms of helping kids catch up correct 20 percent of our essence reallocation had to go to closing the achievement gap okay okay mrs any further comments well no that's clarified and you still have eighty percent of the money yeah as long as they haven't read long we don't have purchase orders against those already then yes because we did have to enter

077it into grants management and it had to be approved at the state level so what what we submitted is approved and if we are going to change it we have to go in and ask them to reject it and amend it if that's what we decide to do okay any further questions okay mrs allen yes mrs price yeah mr austin's group ms valerie yes mr gibbon yes uh the district finance report passes thank you um coco 19 update discussion and information yes discussion and information and i did um ask mr nathan um this web host will be available to come to the podium for any additional questions that the board may have um as monica opens the update i did provide and hopefully those of the public will be able to see the agenda so

078on the report there it has the first line is current current student positive cases and you'll see a total of 21. that was as as of november 1st we updated today and board members do have the actual handout that we gave you that has the total at 41. so they did double non-campus student positive cases is at 22 that's the second column current staff positive cases is that 15 and the total coveted cases altogether are 78. so overall students in quarantine the days we have had 287 students in quarantine overall staff in 14 28 and the total is 315 days that staff and students have for a team so when we uploaded this on thursday the numbers have changed as of today so they have increased we do update the dashboard every monday and it's

079available on our website so if you go to the website under coven information and you click on that the dashboard comes up and you can see the exact table that is presented tonight so again this school year looking at our cases fall break occurred the week of october 4th through the 8th so three weeks following yeah okay so three weeks following the break reduce the highest number of positive coping cases which cause students to quarantine and isolate positive coping cases have primarily originated from outside our school from close contacts from parents and siblings who have contracted covenant from their places of employment or family gatherings as well as from community events and extracurricular activities outside of our school due to the increase in cases after fall break we're going to be requiring teachers to separate

080the desk and go back to our semi-mitigation plan where we had students a little bit more separate right now they are working in groups um separating desks and limiting group project work for maybe two weeks after thanksgiving and winter break um truly continuing to emphasize hand sanitizing and hand washing we will continue to work on that we do have our um electrostatic sprayer in the classrooms and they're sprayed three times a week and all classrooms have common areas have operating hippo filters which we did perfuse with esser funding we purchased all those hepa filters for every classroom and the main common areas and speaking of quarantine we did we have had some cases where students have had to double quarantine based on either staff positive case or students we did offer in that case a

081test to state option in terms of just closed contacts not actual positive cases so on a case-by-case basis we will continue to sort of look at that this week we were very affected by fifth grade students who were passing it around but also it started with this gathering that we know the students were at during fall break which caused um the fifth grade situation so mr nathan and mrs do you want to just share a little bit of where we are with fifth grade and what our thoughts are moving forward so currently we have two teachers and and a substitute teacher who's been working in fifth grade who have are getting overcoiled or webbed in diagnosed with cholesterol tested positive we have seven students eleven that are in quarantine seven that have tested positive and

082then we had another one yesterday so right now we have 29 students total out of the 70 either on quarantine or isolation in our fifth grade and we have 40 that are still here on campus we were contemplating and thinking about if this continues because this is going into week three would we should we move forward with virtual learning from last week or week and a half to try to stop the spread in that particular grade level and hopefully not have it spread throughout the rest of our campus because our goal is to keep our campus open so those are just things that we're thinking of and we're still following to see if we're going to still have more cases and more students that are testing positive in that grade level thank you and also

083looking at classroom coverage we have like we mentioned with miss birth of ambrilla we have our specialists we have elementary music pe and librarian and in the case of no substitutes available and the teachers being out we've had to cancel specials for the elementary classes so our specialists can cover and we have used our out of the classroom teachers to also cover at different times so our school counselor has covered so we really are all hands on debt prepared to help cover these classes because we do want to keep our students in school the last thing we want to do is obviously close the school and have them be instructed virtually what i will be proposing at the next board meeting is that we look at how many teachers have lost planning time and how

084many even have middle school teachers who during their planning time will go cover a class um that we can look at a budget with a compensation plan to just kind of an extra thank you for covering classes and lots of planning time because teachers give up their planning time they still have to plan on their own time um and sometimes it's you know just a hardship but everybody is really doing a great job in trying to mitigate and keep each other safe did you want to add anything else yes so per discussion or an administrator earlier today and just have a few questions if you will for the board that i'd like you to consider and one of those is at what point do we bring back the task force to consider looking at mitigation

085steps and moving back into possibly phase two or phase one so that's one thing that as we see an increase is that something that boards would like us is happening to consider another question is last year um we did see an increase after a thanksgiving break as well as after christmas break um not in particular to students but to staff we saw that in flux we have been holding on for our bootstraps all week just to keep people in the classrooms um to the point that we've been covering as well and just spread super super thin so we're really concerned of if that trend continues for us like we saw last year um staffing needs are substitutes we've done really really well this year thanks to miss monica who oversees ourselves and keeping them in

086the classroom but we've kind of hit the end now where we have two or three positions open every day and no subs to fill them which then we're kind of you know dropping peter to pay paul and eventually that's going to catch up to us and so we really need to ask the board to be mindful of that as we move forward um coming into thanksgiving and christmas break and not that we would stop teaching but if we did go that route like we did last year we did um after christmas break two weeks of digital learning and then all the students returned back on campus we also last year required that our staff be home and more or less isolating with their immediate family non-extended family because they're on the clock um doing that

087so that's one of the things that we asked last year to help mitigate the spread one thing that we've also talked about doing is before we come back to have testing centers that last year pigment county put on this year we actually have our own testing site but be able to test our our staff before coming back from those breaks is something that we are considering moving forward so let me make sure um two two more things one of the things that we saw tonight um in our call to the public we have lots of parents that have lots of questions um if we continue to see this trend of upswing i would recommend that we have a study session where we can have an open dialogue with our community as we saw that they

088want have a voice and they want that voice heard um where the board can go back and forth and communicate answer questions ask questions of our community as well to really get the entire pulse of what our community is wanting us to do as we are here as superintendent and principal and assistant principal to serve our community and it would help us to be able to make those educated decisions based off of their wants their needs as well as a time for us to hear our staff openly as well as that our staff communicate with you as well and then the last thing is with all of this going on i know i talked about it earlier when we nominated our nurse last year for um the golden horseshoe award she's done um this lady

089has gone way above and beyond and i can't believe that she walks in here every day and continues to test and it is too much for her and we definitely need to look at adding if it you know she's doing all the jobs she's done on a normal year plus the coco testing she's trained me to help her but there's only so much i can do and do my position and we really need to look at at least with her window this year giving her an assistant to help her in the nurse's office and so i know we're dealt with this huge deficit budget um but if we want to continue to stay open we've got to make sure that our school nurse is healthy and also has the assistance and help that she needs

090and so if there's anything i can do as an administrator is to plead for our nurse and say we gotta get this place and we gotta fix it fast um because she's literally a trooper marine sportsman trooper but everyone has a break-in with it and we need to make sure that she doesn't lose yours because what she does for our kids is she keeps them in school and so if that means that we're going to do tests to stay you're asking her to test tons and tons of kids right now it can be 40 a day we did what this week we did about 15 and it took about three or four of us an hour to do 15 kids through the process um and so we need help and with that their consumer county

091health department paperwork so with all the reports of the tests there's like 20 to 25 four page reports that need to be uploaded into we have 24 hours to get all of that clerical work put in and we've all been trying to help maureen with that but she takes it all home on the weekends and is working late at night yeah i think what you all see is me out there the 17 i did that's that's nothing that's nothing that's the ones that happened in that first hour continues to test throughout the day and keep our staff um healthy if any of them are feeling sick immediately they come even if it's a headache and test so we can either put them back in or get them out for the safety of their so like

092i said my last plug is you really need help with her um and so that's something that we all need to figure out where and how but we need to make that that happen first and foremost and that's my all of my items well i i want to say this whole like super super long two day week that we've had um really goes to show how strong our leadership is and everyone is on board to fill in the gaps and pick up the ball and everyone is substituting there's substitute teacher shortages all over the country and we're maxed out in a community of retirees without full-time jobs here we are some of us are trying to volunteer to and sacrifice our income in our career to substitute um it's really kind of surprising that we

093have a substitute teacher shortage here in green valley but um just the fact that all of your specials everyone's jumping in and that's amazing and here we are trying to figure out how to close the achievement gap but we're taking away the planning time away from our teachers that's inappropriate to ask to our teachers our nurses taking paperwork home on the weekends to complete it that's inappropriate for us to ask of you we can't afford to have you experience burnout and leave us oh i'm not you say that now but i i think it's a war we need to keep all of these things in mind that these are human beings with limits and um thank you so much for keeping the team together and everyone has a very strong picture of the common goal

094of keeping our school open and the kids in the classrooms um but as far as the uh um increase in um cases goes what are you hearing from the teachers about that because they're my my concern where i'm going with this is there have been school districts across the country where teachers have said i don't feel safe coming to school so i'm not going to and if that happens we have to close our campus so i want to do whatever i can to keep the teachers feeling good about coming to work every day so we can keep our kids in the classrooms so i think they should have a really loud voice on what we do with this and our teachers i hope there i know many of them are listening and some of you

095are here but we're very very grateful to have the teachers that we have on staff because they want our campus to stay open and they've been we got numerous emails and text messages last night about planning for today and how people could help and that was our teachers and our support staff so tomorrow we will have a meeting and get to hear more as we talk about some safety protocols we're going to be employing in the coming days and coming weeks but we will be able to hear more from our teachers as we know right now their biggest concern is their students and their families so when we talk specifically about the fifth grade we've kind of asked them because we were having that discussion they obviously understand the importance of kids on campus but

096they also feel very confident in their ability to teach virtually which we didn't have that confidence two years ago and so they were confident in doing that as well if needed and i think all of our teachers are in that position where they're honestly ready to do whatever we ask and whatever we need to keep kids learning but ultimately everyone wants to stay here at school if that is the safest thing for students and staff we had our student advisory meet this morning and we spoke to the teachers about during thanksgiving we typically have parents come in and have lunch thanksgiving lunch and pie with our students and we had already said we weren't going to allow that we're holding off on our volunteers on coming in until two weeks after january just to kind

097of let things settle but teachers you know they're torn also because they want to be here they want to be here for kids but in the sense there's still that urgency of we want to make sure our students are safe and that they're safe and so we did they were happy when we said we're going to allow you to separate the desk a little bit more make sure you're ensuring hand washing we will limit the number of visitors coming in we are planning our veterans day activity but we did separate kids and they are in cohorts with their classrooms we're going to be discussing tomorrow tomorrow our winter concerts because we we want to keep running school but we have to just really think it through and make sure that everybody feels safe while they

098are here removing our open house to the spring so it'll be a celebration of learning for now but people should be posted on that and then our ptc also um has decided to postpone the grandparents bingo night that was going to take place next friday 19th and we will also come into the spring and our veterans day celebration will be held outside as well we're just getting creative with the way we're doing things just to keep us and we normally allow parents and community members to come to our veterans day celebration but we're asking this year that we just limit it to our presenters and so our kids can be part of it and we won't be so congested two questions steve so the problem with that question is when you talk about it asymptomatic

099so every one of these cases these positive cases has shown symptoms what you're talking about the majority of our students who have tested positive are experiencing minimal i'd say i mean everyone every class the ones that are tested positive that are completely asymptomatic most of the children i'll just be honest one of them is mine he had a day and a half of a headache and was bouncing off the walls for the rest of the eight and a half nine days of his quarantine time okay um and so you know i'm not in the homes of all of the students but all of our students have returned after their 10-day quarantine look at the current student cases that we have on campus i can speak for them out of the 20 that are current this

100week i would say um 15 12 to 15 of them had mild symptoms and then the symptoms worsened after i did the test and they went home and then they really started having symptoms a couple days i've only had about three or four of those kids that had absolutely no symptoms at all and were at school and why they ended up getting tested because a parent or they were close contact and they would be tested just to see how they were all possible so non student cases i only have three and those were all due to close contacts at times so um most of the kids have some symptoms but maybe just um 20 of those symptoms at all and the only reason i need to test this because i get a phone call saying

101somebody at home has it okay and second question uh out of the 41 student cases we've had this academic year so far any hospitalizations um emergency room visits no long-term stay thank you and it was due to an underlying condition well fortu i i know there was a lot of talk a few uh months back when um some of the mutations were coming on uh how it may affect kids worse and i think fortunately that hasn't been the case at least not to be for like a uh stay and that those children had something already and i i don't i'm very very grateful for that and i know most of our cases are students but we also cannot forget that those students go home to susceptible adults and we have susceptible adults as staff members

102and faculty and you know the kids should always be in the forefront of all of our decisions but we can't service our kids if we don't have the faculty or staff and so a lot of our decisions um and the protocols and all of that are to protect the adults that are susceptible to it um i think i guess i kind of assumed you were always kind of watching this mitigation plan kind of moving along i um so i have no problems against you starting that back up and i i do not i i don't love the idea of wearing masks but i do love a lot of the other things you guys did i've said it so many times we didn't have pink eye in my house we didn't have scrap throat last year

103we didn't have colds it was awesome so so what we will do is continue to monitor daily working with miss wormy to determine what needs to happen if we feel that the next board meeting is december 14 that it is a tuesday so we have december and january meetings are on tuesdays and then the rest will be on mondays but december 14th if we need to have a study session but we will continue to look at what we can do to continue to mitigate the situation here on campus does caisson any questions thank you i have to when will we see the request for the nurse's assistant on the agenda export me thank you got a good answer and then the other is um thank goodness we've got our buses going if maybe you've been

104to any of our um sporting events a lot of the schools are renting charter buses because they don't have drivers so i gave steve a hard time like why don't we have these custom coaches i need to inform people we don't know because we have drivers and our buses so i can't imagine the cost of that but it's it's not pretty i'm sure i'd also like to mention that because we are keeping my bus riders healthy and keeping the buses empty we are actually helping neighboring school districts with their field trips as well oh right cool and that's revenue coming into the district because instead of paying their charter they're paying us to travel and then the only other thing is is how can we help the substitute shortage if it gets super critical um

105is there a i know you've got to do the background checks is there a emergency provision something something that we could do to if you meet a b and c then you can help sub i don't know how that looks there i would think there would be something might be something looking to look into that that and we do have a scroll of um substitutes and i go through the list a lot of them are already filling in after they're walled in or solid some of them are choosing not to come into the school right because they are elderly i have a son who tested positive and she's our normal sub so she can't have more confidence um just various reasons like that that and we do have a pretty good list of people right

106we currently have 35 um so it sounds like a lot and it is it's probably more than i had like last year i had left but you're getting in trouble and the staff is overloaded you know i'm i'll just say me i mean i got some bandwidth but i don't have the background check and all that stuff that they have to go through can get the kids to certify right yes you can you can okay so push down to shove you can call in the backup whatever you might want to call well that's good to know so okay but just so you know we are certified to serve lunch remember last year yeah okay thank you any further discussion questions thank you okay on to the asba proposed bylaw change um just a point of

107clarification is huge you had a question about um uh core beliefs and violence and bylaws and it looks like we uh looked it up it looks like the bylaws are the core beliefs same thing they okay so um we have a proposed change to the bylaws of asba so i will entertain a motion to uh on this and then we will have discussion i'll move that we vote yes for the um proposed by law change do i have a second a second okay discussion uh mrs kais do you have some discussion no i'm concerned about it okay so um and i raised the issue last month a little bit i think people know where i stand on this i've served on the board for almost two years now and over the past two years i've

108probably participated in a dozen webinars and on-site or on-site trainings of the arizona school board association and i can maybe count on one finger the number of those webinars and training sessions that had anything to do with what the board can do to help our kids progress academically they don't talk about it i think it's time for the asba to start helping school boards learn what we can do to help kids progress academically and achieve and not spend their time and resources in allocating board seats on the asba board on whose eligibility is totally and solely based on the color of somebody's skin there's nothing in this amendment to me that's inclusive it divides people further based completely on the color of their skin every school board in the state has an opportunity to elect

109members to the arizona school board association every county has a representative on the arizona school board association fema and and maricopa county have an additional seat navajo county has already elected a native american to the school board yuma and maricopa county have hispanic members and there's probably more hispanic members on the on the arizona school board association than than sometimes what you can tell so they are already have representation on the board and i think it's time to stop this designated seats on the basis of race they need to concentrate on helping our kids perform academically that's the way it should be i think this amendment is contrary to the values of equality and treating people as individuals and not mere group members and i strongly urge this continental board to reject this motion well

110i i have um [Music] something you said about dividing them by solely on the color of their skin right now the hispanics and the native americans share a seat and they're pretty much by and large the same shade of brown what we are proposing to split this seat for is not the color of their skin since they're pretty much the same color um but their their demographics um you mentioned that some of the counties have um ethnic representatives they are on the board and i may be wrong if i if i don't get this right let me know um but they they are sitting on the board not to represent the special interests of these demographics but to represent their counties and then these caucus board uh seats would represent the special interests of these

111particular demographics um i committed myself personally to be a lifelong learner i'm not afraid of hearing anyone's opinion i think i can learn something from anybody i'm not worried about them having an additional voice on the board i'm not worried about being so gullible that i'm going to be persuaded by something if they're wrong about something um i've i've got enough confidence in my own discernment i think there are many thought leaders out there who welcome the idea of listening to different types of people um and to your point mr ulri um how can we help improve the education of our kids how can we increase these ever important test scores um ell has not always been taught in the elementary level my mom when i was a kid she taught it at the adult

112level through a community college um and it was called english as a second language is what it's called back then um and back then it was not taught in any public schools especially not at the elementary level um however i would have no idea the number of children that do not have high perfection proficiency in english and even though we have um these spanish immersion classes all of the core subject matter is taught exclusively in english and if we do not give those kids that don't have high proficiency in english um that extra time out of the classroom with their ell instructor to help strengthen that they're going to do pretty damn poor on those standardized tests wouldn't you say so helping them learn english increase their test scores and that helps us that helps

113our school look better we have um 49 of our children are hispanic now most of those i'm sure their families are very proficient in english and all of that stuff but there are some that aren't and i i don't know the answer to this question i'm proposing it rhetorically i guess um who do you think championed the idea of bringing ell to uh schools at the elementary level do you know his rico by chance who that was no i i don't know either i probably should have tried to look it up but i would i would be willing to vet real money that it wasn't an old white guy um it was probably a special interest uh hispanic group that championed that and got it in and it got all test scores across arizona because

114of our high percentage of families that don't have high proficiency in english it help test scores across the state i think they deserve a seat at the table every year not just every other year and they still have a seat at the table no matter what if we vote this down and the whole state votes this down they still have a seat at the table the only thing we're voting on is giving them a seat every year instead of every other year um i think we would be doing a disservice to 49 of our constituents our constituents are the students and i i know i am very ignorant to many of their problems and if there's a tiny chance that i'm going to learn more about their individual problems i would be more than willing

115to hear it and [Music] native americans have probably so many more challenges living on the reservation um not having access to internet you look at the internet availability in navajo county and just our reservations right up the road here um that puts kids at a huge disadvantage do you think some white guys sitting on the board on the gilbert school district is going to try to champion and uh reduce cost internet access to school children because that's a thing now you can get reduced cost internet access through cox if you meet certain um stipulations um i really doubt that was championed by some old white guy too and that low-cost internet access has helped our test scores here in continental it has helped test scores in children all across the state so mr albree you

116talk about test scores a lot and you talk about how can we help our kids how can we help our kids now here's a group of people saying hey we have ideas i want to listen to their ideas they may be wrong and i'm okay with that i don't have to vote or agree with everything they say but i'm still going to take the opportunity to better myself and listen to them every year not every other year um well i have a couple of things so one thing i would say the asba conference is coming up the first day is how can the board help the academic um of the school and is their first all-day agenda what that said is to get back to the subject just let me give you some stats and

117i'll get to my point the report i have out of 654 students here at continental um 319 are hispanic 24 or multi-ethnic five native american eight asian nine black one pacific islander and 280 white so but we go back to the representation representation and equity that for students parents members of the community i mean i can say all day long yes i can represent a hispanic a pacific islander an american indian student and look out for their best but i've never walked a mile in their shoes you know i mean it i that's the only best way i can say it um so to add an additional seat on the asba board so both all three caucuses of the major minorities it's an oxymoron kind of right but um so they have representation and equity

118um because people like me have not walked them out on their shoes i could say all day long i will protect your kid but i don't know what it's like to walk into you know i grew up in a 98 all-white middle-class school on the east coast um and our board almost represents that right um so it's it's just as kind of a scary thought not to support this issue so with that i will pass on him again okay i i think it's important to explain my vote a little bit um i've been here on this board i will be starting my ninth year and i can assure you i guess if i were to [Music] put a title on it i say eat purpose of them i think that we all need to come

119together as one to work together for everyone i know that's easier said than done i know that's a challenge but i can assure you roughly nine years ago when i started at the board level i wasn't thinking that when a child comes in here i'm only going to give them 110 based on their skin color um it's it's my if i'm going to be a part of education in any capacity i don't care if i'm it doesn't matter what i'm doing in public education i owe every child that comes through that door 110 of my effort and i could care less what their skin color is that's how i feel about it so i look at this as a little bit slightly different direction but um i absolutely realize and respect the fact that they

120have unique circumstances absolutely of course they do but i promise you i can knock on every front door of every child every single child in this district and they each every and every one of them has a unique circumstance every single one of them so at what point do we say okay are we gonna work for you or you or just some of you or in my mind you better be working like i said 110 for every single one i get it it's an imperfect science i get it there's there will be some children that maybe don't get the what they the coverage they need i i actually think that there's a uh is the rural caucus right i think in my mind that makes more sense because you're you're you're covering the rural needs

121as as a group you're not singling out well i'm going to cover that for you and that for you and that for you and great if you can that's i mean if you can cover all those things great but let's talk about the logistics of all this talk about the red tape let's get let's get a little realistic here folks i just i realize and respect they have unique circumstances um frankly i'm tired of division i'm tired of it sick and tired of it yes not only at the school level but um you can go from school boards all the way to the present united states there's division everywhere you look i'm tired of at university levels and it's like they it's almost like they're they they want to go into a room and put

122you there and you there you there you there um i'm not sure what that accomplishes other than more division more conflict and frankly i'm sick and tired of it and that's that's that's my view on this i think that we are far stronger united far stronger again there are issues with this hispanic neighborhoods or issues with native american areas they had better be addressed absolutely and if their person that they have elected at the state level to represent them at the county so take give me a county naval county whatever it may be if that particular person is not addressing those needs then you have the wrong person doing the job frankly but i just i just i i don't think that adding another level of bureaucracy is going to accomplish something i simply do

123not it's not another level of bureaucracy it's another seat at the table that exists understood but as a whole another director for each county two secretaries and something else for each one of those seats to me that's about that's a that's a whole palette full of red tape but they already have that they only get to sit at the table every other year so now we're just letting apparently that's not the case with what i don't mr ellery did the homework on who's on the on the board now but i i simply don't think it's going to accomplish anything i just don't i don't think it's uh um i don't but there i you know i'm i'm really sick of the division and the last couple years the news has been full of race talk

124and these people against these people and these people have problems with that and i i want to i want to walk away from it too i want to i want to stop all of this and then you have to start somewhere i have the luxury of ignoring it i do roxanna do you have that luxury no money that you have that luxury no i don't think any of us could ignore it you i don't think a parent continental could ignore it i don't know i you know we're obviously a disagreement and ignore it and not listen to any potential problems they have so i think that is i think that is um i think that's absolutely incorrect i think if we vote no on this it's it's it's not we're just going to put up

125our blinds and forget about it oh that's that's absurd well they are they obviously need a voice every year or they wouldn't be asking for it so all they're doing they're bringing information to us and i've said my piece thank you anybody else the only other comment i would have if we want to continue this then there ought to be an asian seat on the board there ought to be a pacific island proceed on the board there ought to be a hawaiian island proceed on the board we're going to truly asians represent almost the percentage of the population in arizona as native americans what's their graduation rate compared to native americans and um hispanic populations are roughly 50 percent less than everyone else asians have a drastically lower graduation rate than i think and i

126think we ought to do everything that we can to close the achievement gap for those minorities in the school we absolutely need to do that we can listen to you know as as uh probably the one sitting on the board that has been a public education teacher i just want to say that one of the things i know that i experienced as as a public school teacher from myself as well as all my colleagues is that when we go into the classroom i think if you were to ask us how many of your students are native american african-american wife i don't think anybody can answer that question because we don't look at our activities as a category we look at our students as people that we love as people that we want to nurture as

127people that we want to teach and the people that we want to grow into a community with us and as we continue this discussion about how many of this and how many of that well if we're going to do that why don't we proportionately just take a look at what the population is and divide it up by that so it's 50 of our tax paying constituents in our school district are white there's let's have a school board with 50 percent white do we really want to go down that path i must say that i find this whole discussion somewhat disturbing because i think it's time for all five of us to just accept the fact that we're dealing with human beings and learn how to listen to each of us each of us regardless of

128what our race our religious religion there are many many federal laws that have been intact to ensure that we do not discriminate and that we listen to each other and i don't think we have to assign seeks to do that mr president i'll call the vote okay i would can i just say something real quick um as the superintendent it's my obligation to always advocate for all students especially with regard to issues of equity as with all governing boards across the state considering this action this item is brought for your consideration in exactly the same spirit of advocating for equity this caucus the purpose of the caucus is to promote legislation to improve educational opportunities for hispanic native american and other students of color in public schools and being that i sit on the amupat

129board and when major universities are looking at graduation rates college graduation rates for our minority students in arizona and they're at 17 i really feel that something does need to be done because if we did have it figured out in arizona if our asba had it figured out our percentages of college graduates would not be what it is for all students so um i just for the record i would just like to make that statement thank you very much i'm sorry let's just okay no motion details okay uh 12b additional paraprofessional position please sir when you say the motion failed so why are we not going to go or if you want me to go in do i do that a motion to approve an additional any discussion on that okay this is alan yes

130yes thank you emotion passes okay mr grave you still on board we are authorization to issue a purchase order to waxy sanitary supply would you give us a background please all right so we had a vendor come to us to show us the uv angel system which is a uv is an um aerial disinfection system it gets rid of all the pathogens in the air if you take a look up at the feelings above you and i'm watching so on those who do it or not if you didn't look at the ceiling above you in those grids what you would see is a unit part of a room like this who would be if you take it that grit and break up into a third you have an air intake system on that first third

131it would be collect in that middle third and then there would be an exit air system on the other side so what's what happens the air comes in it gets sucked up in it goes over the uv lighting kills off all the pathogen and circulates out good air um if you're taking that same grid as it was a light grid in a classroom or a hallway that middle section would be lighting this is a no cost option for the desert we started working with fema to get a drink for this but working with the arizona department of emergency and military affairs and everything that being one doesn't sponsor this but somebody from the department of health services does so we're working with federal agencies to get grants for this so this is an authorization that

132you write the po when and if we get that grant funding from one of those federal agencies so it's conditional on that ground yeah correct okay i'll entertain a motion to authorize the issue of a purchase order to waxy sanitary supply um if the grant comes from a from any particular from one of several sources yeah okay should be brought back to the board okay so we can do that to look at uh have a look is that uh mr greg is that likely to be in the next 30 60 90 days roughly or is there a time frame i honestly like honestly i don't know we're still working with fema to find out why they were funding this and they're no longer funding it so we've got conversations coming up the whole reason to

133bring it before you now is that way once it actually is approved by one of those government agencies that we can go ahead and just move forward with the project that's why it's been brought to you now until once the grant was actually approved so we're trying to be proactive and not have to try and call a special meeting to do this mr president i made a friendly amendment to the motion of a friendly yes okay so uh when and if we get this a grant from the unknown source government source we will bring this back at the next board meeting whenever that may be as soon as possible to make sure this uh gets on the uh potentially in the next two or three weeks depending on their board meeting schedules we have to

134do a mid-month board meeting or not yes okay 12d vouchers excuse me point of order what potion just have the the amended motion the original 12 seed so the amendment had been voted on before and that passed so there wasn't the cheese to vote on the second motion okay well my understanding that the amendment was voted yes and it was changed to the new amended version is that not the case that is what it will be okay uh vouchers 12 d [Music] yeah i i ask that this being removed from the consent agenda i guess anytime that i'm being asked to put a stamp of approval on over a million dollars of expenditures i struggle when it's on the consent agenda um but i've just got a few questions uh greg and and uh i

135mean i'm assuming you've got the district financial report in front of you um i have the consent agenda up in front of me oh okay i'm just um about your 9009 page three there's fifty six hundred dollars of expenditures for social emotional learning that's charged to the capital account can you explain that to me [Music] um i gotta find the actual expenditure in the report i'm working on my phone so please start with me understand well code 6643 are for books so these are some sort of a book i i don't have since i don't have my computer here with me i hope i can't say exactly what those books if you could just let i'm just interested in why church capital i guess but um if it's if it's a if it's a curriculum

136book it has to go to capital okay if you could just confirm that i'd appreciate it page five there's it says repair and maintenance twelve thousand dollars there's no explanation of what it's for scene voucher yeah it's about your still voucher 9009 page five okay so this is our hvac system okay i just uh again uh as much explanation as you can give um about your nine zero one five page two foundation students and teachers forty six hundred which went to esser funds but what just what is foundation student and teachers that's the wilson foundation the the um athletes the wilson foundations and the reading curriculum missouri go back and forth it's our wilson foundations it fundations it's our intervention program okay thank you um the last question i have um well i have two

137on the payroll vouchers one of them is dated september 21st then october 1st and then october 19th is there any reason that we didn't get the september 21st and the october first vouchers to be approved at the last meeting [Music] [Applause] okay and then lastly i just want to understand a little bit greg about how you're handling the blank vouchers that we sign every week last month we signed one two three four five six seven eight blank vouchers and in looking at all the expense vouchers here there's still four of those that are outstanding and haven't been matched up with with the actual expenditures and that's uh 22-24 25 27 and 28. now if there weren't uh but we also approved 30 and 31 which which were after that so i'm just wondering how you

138handle those in sequence so all those vouchers are are locked up in our state right now okay um some of those vouchers are being currently worked on where we needed to get other vouchers done beforehand so that's why you may be but those four have not been presented to us for final approval with the actual expenditures attached to them no not again but they haven't gone through yet okay thank you and just in your notes you're welcome i have a comment on all the vouchers that are being presented to you for signature every night there's a copy of the blank voucher that you signed with the corresponding number so so that you know that they are being utilized okay thank you any further discussion this guy's any questions oh no okay any comments questions okay

139mrs allen yes mrs kite is joshua yes miss valerie yes nice to meet you yes thank you okay we have uh quite a few events boarding school events yes and just to know um like we mentioned open house is going to be rescheduled to the spring for celebration of learning which is november 17th we cancelled november 19th ptc grandparent eagle and we will be meeting with teachers tomorrow and the music department to see how we're going to manage the musical presentations for winter concerts so stay tuned okay okay thank you so we will um hope we have some uh building board information discussion this is i'm enjoying my voice [Music] um yeah i don't know who got to go to the trump retreat this last couple weeks ago i think it was the best way

140i've ever had it was awesome um i there were so many teachers and staff out there volunteering their time to entertain our kids on a friday night and it was it was so much fun i heard a lot of great things about it i got a lot of really good feedback so thank you so much for our passionate staff for helping um make that a success um i've also got a friend who's um involved with the linus project we don't know what that is um they make blankets for kids in the hospital for maternity wards they have to go on for any extended stays for cancer treatments or anything like that and they have traditionally made um quilt squares you know you sew together um and they take them to schools to be decorated by

141school kids and they have not been able to do that because of co-fitness like i know a guy um so i would love to see that maybe um for our art class or maybe some um just class projects or something mrs cooley does a sewing club here at our school so how cool definitely connect us thank you i had just two things got this in the mail this week um arizona school tax credit um to me this is an absolute total no-brainer and you know i just number one i think we ought to do this again and send it out more toward tax season next year um i mean this is nothing out of the pockets of people there's not i mean they can give 400 to continental school and and the state just gives

142it right back to them it's a beautiful way of rerouting some of the money that you normally send to phoenix and said at the con middle school amen and that's all it is this is fantastic let's do it again uh i think that we can we can double the amount of money that comes into continental from something like this and lastly um i'm looking forward tomorrow i believe greg uh that we're meeting with the bond refinance people at 11 o'clock well i'm going to be here greg and so uh uh here we're here to find my new button here here is an absolute fabulous thing that i think we can do for the taxpayers of this district um uh uh to save hopefully close to a million dollars for the taxpayers on your laundry finance

143so i'm looking forward to that meeting tomorrow great and mr larry i just want to reiterate that all of our tutorials clubs um and sports and athletics are sustained by our tax credit funding so we really do appreciate all of our tax credit donors yeah i agree that i mean i agree with you it's a no-brainer but people don't understand it even educated people tax people don't understand it i don't think accountants push it that's which is unfortunate so to get it out there i mean a lot of people don't understand the tax credit or even now that the federal government is giving us child care tax credit and oh well look at this they don't realize that's money that they were going to owe next year but that that's a whole other subject but

144i would make two a suggestion is that we move earlier in the agenda possibly the um cults of the month i think it's a long time for them to sit through i know we originally wanted to kind of see how a board meeting goes and i get that but it's it's a lot of people in a little room for a long time and i think the reason why we did do it that way is that with the superintendent's report it is about the kids and about their families and with what mr nathan and mrs cuevas present on teaching and learning and discipline it is about the students as well so i think when we talk about students and parents having to help us to meet our goals but we did if you notice we're going

145to rotate mrs and mr nathan so they're not both presenting on the same night so they're not that long but we will try to continue to keep them a little bit short but i think it's important that kids hear that we're discussing kids and that parents here that we're talking about their attendance and their progress or not with the students and maybe more exercises mrs cravos and i also we talked about that like as we were doing it today yeah um one of our questions and we're not quite as familiar with the robert's rules or procedures but it's something that the call to the public can be moved after that event instead of going in the beginning because at a time where the students aren't as involved in that um and can we move that

146further back following the cult of the month recipients i think that's a good idea because it is good for parents to hear those reports right not so much we're talking about the kids we're talking about their athletic presentations we're talking about their discipline presentations we're talking about all the good things that btc does in those reports that's good for parents to see but the call to the public i think is something that we could um it's really follows the business part of the meeting and so i think that mr kravos and i thought that that would be a way to just save time there as well just a little tweak somewhere to help get the kiddos out to use your kids okay with that i think we will recess to sign documents think about it

147looks like a lot of them